Hacker Cinema
The Way of the Gun
2000 · Film · 119 min
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie
Two criminal drifters without sympathy get more than they bargained for after kidnapping and holding for ransom the surrogate mother of a powerful and shady man.
2 positive2 neutralfrom 4 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
4 comments on Hacker News
There's a line from the movie The Way of the Gun that I love about this. The number is higher, but it still applies. Some criminals are loading a $15 million ransom into the back of a truck, and a younger criminal says, "Boy, $15 million is a lot of money, huh?" and James Caan, playing an older, wiser criminal says,
"Money? $15 million is not 'money'. It's a motive, with a universal adapter on it."
There are many facets to the discussion of course, but many examples of movies and shows that were exceptional based on lower budgets. When comparing the budget of an entire season of The Boys to almost any single Marvel film though, the wasted money on individual Marvel Films is far more apparent.
Movies like Desperado, Way of the Gun, No Country for Old Men, Fall (by Eric Shaeffer) and many others are far more enjoyable to me than big budget blockbusters, but others may disagree... Those had far lower budgets than many ensemble cast/empty script superhero movies, but preferences are always subjective, so it's not really something I'd really want to argue with anyone about.
The best movie I've (finally) seen in recent months was El Mariachi. He made that for like $8K. Assault on Precinct 13 (the original one): $150,000. The list goes on and on. The Way of the Gun, a more recent favorite of mine with a bunch of big actors in it: $8.5M.
Another factor might be exorbitant star salaries. However, I think that's a symptom, not the disease. The real problem is that Hollywood is greedy. They won't touch a $10M film with no big stars in it because it's not likely to make an 8-figure profit.
That quote is hanging in my cube at eye-level.
Related: "A plan is a list of things that don't happen."
(which Google tells me is from a movie called "The Way of the Gun")